A 9-year-old suffered severe injuries at the Astroworld Festival Friday night in Houston, Texas. According to his grandfather, the young boy, Ezra Blount, was critically injured, crushed by a crowd of festival-goers, and currently in a medically induced coma with trauma to the brain.
According to an interview with CNN, Bernon Blount, the child’s grandfather, said the boy attended the Astroworld Festival with his father, Treston Blount, in hopes of seeing his “favorite artist.”
“When my son went to the concert, he had my grandson on his shoulder,” Blount said. “All the people pushed in, and he could not breathe, so he ended up passing out because of all the pressure that was being applied to his body. And when he passed out, Ezra fell off his shoulder and fell into the crowd.”
Blount said his son and grandson separated during the festival and were crushed by the massive crowd while the boy’s father was still unconscious. The child was transported to Texas Children’s Hospital, “where he was registered as a John Doe.”
“They did not know anything about him, his name or anything because he got separated from my son,” Blount said.
“During the event at the concert, he had a cardiac arrest which damaged his heart,” Blount said of his grandson’s current condition. “He has damage to the liver, his lungs … and on top of that, he has swelling on his brain.”
Blount told CNN, the family is “devastated because this was supposed to be a father-son outing for them to bond, and it has turned into something horrible and tragic.”
He also demands everyone involved in the tragedy to take responsibility for their actions, including the city.
“There needs to be accountability, not just from the artist or the event planners, but also from the city of Houston,” Blount added.
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Here is the latest on 9YO Ezra Blount who remains in a coma after being trampled by concert goers at #AstroWorld pic.twitter.com/LLuIs6LXbr
— Stefania Okolie (@StefaniaOkolie) November 9, 2021
According to a statement from the attorneys, the family has retained civil rights attorney Ben Crump and attorneys Alex and Bob Hilliard to represent the Blounts.
“The suffering that this family is going through is immeasurable. This little boy had his whole life ahead of him — a life that is currently hanging in the balance because of the reckless mismanagement that ensued at the Astroworld Festival,” Crump said.
The family has created a GoFundMe to help with medical expenses to support the child’s recovery.
“Thankful for his life and thankful for all the prayers and positivity,” wrote the still-recovering father, “we are asking for donations for his medical bills and anything that comes along with this tragedy,” the family wrote in a statement on the GoFundMe website.
